On the Beat

(I have posted letters about my trip to India in 1991; but I appear not to have written about the last part of the trip, which took me to Jaipur, Agra and back to Delhi. I shall write it now, referring back to my diary. Let’s see how good my memory really is! Although, of course, I could just make it up, with the help of Lonely Planet.)

( Some words and lots of pictures - including the most beautiful building in the world - after the cut... )

(This is the text of a letter I wrote in 1993 about a trip to India in 1991. I have edited out bits that were nothing to do with that trip, and corrected a few typos, but everything else is much as I wrote it.)

The End of the World.

( Lots of words and a few photographs after the cut... )

I have scanned photographs I took on my first visit to India in November and December, 1991, and I am posting them together with letters I wrote subsequently about the trip. I don’t seem to have written to anyone about the last part of the trip – or I didn’t keep a copy of the letter – so I have written a short piece, based on my memories.

For most of the trip I was travelling once more with G. – it was his idea to go to India, where he had been before. I wasn’t especially keen, but I had holiday I had to use up before the end of the year, I had a fair bit of money and it sound like it could be interesting.

I was immediately converted to India: I found it a fascinating, confusing and sometimes deeply irritating place. I have been back twice since, and I want to go again sometime.